Deb called me at work one morning and said that she had to take Carly to school because the Jetta was flooded - as in there were three inches of water in the front passenger-side footwell. Of course the logical assumption was that Carly had left the sunroof or a window open but apparently she had not. Deb actually had to bail out the water and then stomp on towels to try and dry things up but she really couldn't tell where the water was coming from. I told her to park it in the garage (since it was still raining) and I would take a look when I got home.
Of course, the first rule of the Internet is - if you think you're the only one with problem X, you are wrong. Somebody, somewhere has blogged about it. So, I googled "Jetta water leak".
Big mistake.
Gee, should I read about the class action lawsuit against VW for the water damage from filled passenger footwells, or maybe the list of dealers who deny the problem, or any of a thousand personal sites recounting the trials and tribulations of dealing with the leak and the moldy smell and electrical problems it brings.
I eventually settled on a site that had a running commentary from people who had the problem and who had tried various different ways of dealing with it. After reading literally hundreds of posts, there seemed to be two main theories. The first was that the drains from around the sunroof were clogged. Of course there were people who had the flooding who didn't have sunroofs so that was a bit suspect and there were people who either paid the dealer to clear the clogs or did it themselves and it didn't help the problem. Hmm. The second theory was that the pollen filter in the engine compartment gets cracked when they put the cover back on and this lets the water in. I didn't know where this was going but I figured it would be an expensive trip wherever it went.
So on a drizzly Saturday, I had a chance to take a look. I had asked Carly if there seemed to be any more water coming in. She said there wasn't on the floor but she said she thought she heard water sloshing whenever she braked. Oh perfect. I hopped in the car and rolled down the street and put the brakes on. I swear there must have been a Bonsai Pipeline in the roof of the car! OK, I'm guessing the sunroof drains are clogged - who even knew there were drains in the sunroof?
The website posts had mentioned little rubber "nipples" that needed to be "worked" to release the flow - try googling *that* and see what you get - but I really didn't know where they were. I finally found another website that walked you through the whole process - with pictures of the nipples even! I went back out to the car, found the objects of my desire and started "workin' it". OK, enough of that. Anyway, as I worked this thing, it was excreting this thick, sandy/greasy gook like black toothpaste coming from a tube. Then, all of a sudden, the last of the gook came out followed by spraying water! It quickly drained and I repeated the process on the other three nips. It was amazing how much gook and relatively high pressure water came out. It drained the roof area though and it seems to have done the trick although we haven't had much rain since.
